Ignoring for now the irony of writing about non-verbal communication and trying to illustrate it with compelling and watertight examples, let’s continue our discussion of this key ‘map.’ More specifically, in this article let’s consider how this Low/High Context difference comes about and what it means for us as business people.

There is no doubt that Japanese people have a tendency to be High Context, but are they born that way? Is young Tami-chan from Ooimachi in Tokyo, barely one month after her second birthday, High Context or Low Context, for instance? Overall, although she doesn’t have many words at her disposal, she is fighting to verbalise thoughts. Every day she adds more words to her vocabulary and delights in making herself understand more efficiently and effectively. Her ‘antenna’ are not yet fully developed, and when her mother communicates with her, the focus of that communication is on explicit verbal messages. She is Low Context.

If Tami-chan is reaching for a sharp kitchen knife, for instance, or if she throws her food bowl on the floor, her mother does not talk to her in a High Context way: “Er, Tami-chan, I sharpened that knife just the other day and it’s made of the very best Japanese steel, so to be honest, it might be better to think about playing with something else like this cuddly toy frog…” or, “You may not be all that fond of buckwheat soba noodles, but they’re filling and fairly nutritious, and on top of that, I’ve had a long day, so picking food off the floor and mopping up liquid is not high on my list of things that I’d like to do right now, and anyway, you have to eat something before you go to bed, so I’d really rather you didn’t do that.” Rather, her mother will tell her in a Low Context manner, “NO! Tami-chan, no. Don’t do that. Stop. NOW!”

However, interesting research shows key differences in the education of infants at pre-school in Japan and the United States (Tobin, Wu, and Davidson, Yale University Press, 1991). Respondents were asked, “What are the most important things for children to learn in preschool?” - while 31% of Japanese made “sympathy, empathy, concern for others” their number one choice, only 5% of Americans did the same. In contrast, the top answer for Americans was “self-reliance, self-confidence” (34%), which was chosen as most important by a mere 11% of Japanese. At the same time, then, that very young Japanese children are being encouraged to listen to others and try to understand what they want, Americans are being told to say what they want clearly using words.

When we talked about this research to a Japanese group of middle managers recently, one burst out laughing: “Yeah! You know, my wife told our five-year-old daughter the other to ‘Ba wo yome!’” (“Read the situation!”). At the same time, American, Canadian, and German seminar participants have told us about how their parents urged them to say what they meant when they were young children: “Look at me, Thomas. What do you want? Just tell me. I am not a mind-reader. Speak to me.”

When pre-schoolers move up to grade school, their education systems (designed to create fully functioning adults for their respective societies) continue to push them in different directions. Elementary school students in Western countries have to write simple essays on a weekly basis. Their teachers check spelling and grammar, of course, but also they encourage students to use conjunctions, structure their writing in logical paragraphs, and most important of all, to have a clear main point for each essay. From a young age, then, children in countries such as Canada and New Zealand are being asked, “What’s your POINT?!” If they have a clear point supported by evidence, then they are praised and rewarded (“Your writing is easy to understand. Well done!”). However, what is happening in Japan? In their kokugo (“country language,” i.e., Japanese) classes, Japanese students at elementary school aged only eleven and twelve are given texts and then asked to interpret those texts together with the teacher. The writing often structured in a ki-shou-ten-ketsu (起承転結) manner, with the conclusion coming only at the end after a lengthy introduction (ki), assorted examples of some as-yet-unstated point (shou), an example from a different angle (ten), and then (finally) the main point (ketsu). This kind of training continues throughout school education in Japan, and is a feature of entrance examinations. Students are taught to read between the lines, then.

John Hinds developed this idea with his research into “reader-responsible” and “writer-responsible” cultures (1987, “Reader versus writer responsibility: A new typology” in U. Connor & R. B. Kaplan (Eds.), Writing across languages: Analysis of L2 text (pp. 141-152), Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley). “Reader-responsible” cultures expect the reader to interpret a written text, whereas “writer-responsible” cultures put the onus on the writer to leave nothing between the lines. Chinese, Bulgarian, Koreans, and Japanese, for instance, are said to be “reader-responsible.” Ideas are often pitched at a fairly abstract level, and often conjunctions (such as “Because of this” or “On the other hand”) are omitted because they are implied and understood by the High Context reader (or listener, as we will see below). A sentence taken at random from the November 2008 NHK Radio Chinese textbook provides an example of the High Context nature of the Chinese language: “Zhege xingqitian wo qu lüyou bu zai jia.” Translated directly into English, it means, “This Sunday I go trip not at house.”

In contrast, anyone writing in English is expected to take responsibility for writing explicitly and so she needs to use explicit linking expressions, as well as to structure her writing so that the main point (thesis, or conclusion) comes out in the introduction, with the body supporting that main point, and the conclusion reiterating the main point with some recommendation. Rather than the ki-shou-ten-ketsu mentioned above, it is ketsu-shou-ketsu (結承結); teaching how this pattern works in practice, for example in presentations and business writing, is a key part of what we currently do at INTEC. Now, since we can get information from reading or listening, we can also think of some cultures as being “listener-responsible;” meanwhile, we can give information through writing or speaking, so languages such as English are “speaker-responsible.” And this is wonderful news for non-native speakers of English.

Imagine, if you will, being in a meeting or teleconference with someone who speaks English like a machine gun. If you don’t have much confidence in your own English ability, you may well feel intimated, particularly if you come from a listener-responsible culture. If you happened to be on the receiving end of a burst of verbal fire from that machine gun, you might freeze. However, the good news is that you (as the listener) do not bear the primary responsibility for understanding what is being said. Rather, the speaker bears the primary responsibility for speaking explicitly so that you can understand her. This means that if you don’t understand her, your only job is to tell her, and to do it within one second (“Pardon me?” or “Excuse me” of “Please say that again” or “Please speak more slowly” or “Please give me an example” or “Please write that down”). If you quickly show her when you don’t understand, she can try to explain it again until you do understand, and in that way, you can communicate. If you try to bluff your way through, or if you decide that you don’t want to appear selfish and interrupt her to ask for repetition, it is dangerous. She may think that you are following what she is saying. When she finds out that you don’t, she is very likely to be frustrated: “Why didn’t you just tell me earlier that you didn’t understand?”

This practical piece of advice is deceptively simple and very powerful. It helps to explain many instances of intercultural miscommunication. It is one clear example of the impact of Context on business communication. Another example is the use of contracts. While Low Context people like detailed contracts (as well as manuals), High Context people feel that they cannot put everything into words contained in one document. Their contracts, if they use them, tend to be brief, and their manuals may be vague or abstract. Low Context people often see the world in black and white terms, with 100% answers and absolute values (A is right, B is wrong). High Context people, by contrast, see the world in gradations of grey. Nothing is ever 100%, and values are relative. Whether something is right or wrong depends on the situation.

Finally for this article, please think about one last piece of advice. If you are a Low Context person dealing with a High Context person, when you think there is something that is being left unsaid [with words], then do what you usually do: check it. If you suspect that there may be a ‘face’ issue, then wait until later, or consider using a third party. Use your non-verbal skills to pay attention to ‘atmosphere,’ but don’t rely on your interpretation - check it. After several years of working with the same High Context people, you will develop sensitive antenna, but in the meantime, use the Low Context channel to avoid costly misunderstandings.

On the other hand, if you are High Context and you are working with other High Context people who are from different High Context cultures, then you need to be particularly careful. It is likely that neither person checks explicitly, and while these people may often understand one another quickly and efficiently, the problem is that they sometimes head in completely different directions because of subtle misunderstandings. That can cost you and your company a lot of time and money. Until you are sure that you have successfully built a common context and that you understand the other person’s ‘bottom-part-of-the-iceberg’ (see the article on “Culture”), it is much safer to be Low Context. Make sure that there are minutes for meetings, use contracts to confirm common understanding (while perhaps working to develop sufficient trust to be flexible when absolutely necessary), and follow up conversations with e-mails that summarise what was said in those conversations.

Next time, let’s look at how the ‘map’ of Context relates to explicit time schedules and project planning. For now, though, let me be Low Context and say, “This is the end of today.”

Let’s now consciously, descriptively, and accurately consider some more stereotypes. If you imagine a scale that runs from very direct communication to very indirect communication, what would you say is the basic tendency in Australia? How about in Japan? Most likely, you would agree that Australians tend to be more direct than Japanese (with the probable exception of when Australians are joking; jokes break the norm and are therefore funny). How about if you compare the Netherlands and Indonesia? When we posed this last question in October to senior managers handling the local operations of a Japan-based trading company, the Indonesian member burst out laughing: “Of course Dutch people are more direct!”

Now think of the Japanese expression, 一を聞いて、十を知る (ichi wo kiite, juu wo shiru: hear one, understand ten). Does it strike you as being odd? If you are Japanese, then the answer to that question is most likely “No!” If you are from an English-speaking culture, however, your answer may be different (“Know what?! Know ten? But he only said ‘one.’ If he wants me to understand ‘ten,’ he should just come out and say ‘ten.’ I mean, that’s just bizarre”).

Next, try to translate the following Japanese directly into English: ちょっと難しい (chotto muzukashii). According to my dictionary, the word “muzukashii” is “difficult,” which means that there is a problem, and so if we think carefully about the situation, then we should be able to solve that problem and overcome the difficulty. After all, we’re smart people and we have problem-solving skills. What is more, it turns out that the problem is actually only “chotto” difficult. In the same dictionary, the word “chotto” means “a little bit, slightly, or few” so actually, we should be able to solve the problem pretty quickly (since it is not a big problem, but only a small one). However, if your Japanese customer or boss tells you that something is “chotto muzukashii,” then you can be pretty sure that it is completely impossible. “A little bit difficult” equals “completely impossible”?!

Finally, how about the Japanese expression, 検討する (kentou suru), and in particular, 前向きに検討する (maemuki ni kentou suru)? Does this expression really mean that the speaker is going to favourably, facing forward, positively (maemuki ni) consider (kentou suru) something, or does it mean that you are getting brushed off? The chances are high that if you are talking to someone in the Kasumigaseki district of Tokyo, then the latter is the case.

Does all of this mean that Japanese communication is vague and ambiguous? We often hear this comment from Japanese and non-Japanese alike, but if it is really true, then how on earth do Japanese manage to run companies and work together? They obviously understand one another, so while the words used may appear vague and ambiguous, the communication itself must usually be clear to all involved. Is this evidence of some magical quality that Japanese possess, perhaps something genetic? That is quite patently a ridiculous idea, which leaves us with the strong possibility that Japanese are trained to operate and communicate in a certain way that appears vague and ambiguous to some outsiders. However, it is not only Japanese people. To some extent, Koreans, Chinese, and Saudis (amongst others) have a similar tendency, although not quite so pronounced. Thinking about it, one complaint I sometimes hear from Americans about British people is that it is hard to get a straight answer from a Briton.

This leads us to the idea of “[Low versus High] Context,” a concept that was originally developed by Edward T Hall, and which we have adopted at INTEC to analyse tendencies in business communication. Broadly speaking, Germans are at the Low Context end of the scale, which means that they say [explicitly] what they mean and mean what they say [explicitly]. The message is carried by the literal word. On the other hand, Japanese are trained to be High Context - what they say and what they mean may not always be the same thing, and the message may not even be in the words. In fact, the message is made up of multiple inputs, such as the word, gestures, facial expressions, posture, situation, relative age, power relations, shared information, and even “ma” (間 = gap, space, or silence). Japanese parents and schools encourage children to understand other’s feelings and understand what other people are trying to say, often ahead of understanding their own feelings. Japanese children are rewarded for 場を読む (ba wo yomu), but it is not only situations (ba) that they should read. Japanese also talk about reading (yomu) the air (kuuki), other people (aite), what will happen next (saki), the ‘colour’ of someone’s face (kao iro), as well as between the lines (gyoukan).

At this point, you may object that we also talk about reading between the lines in English. However, there is an important difference. If we think of someone who can read between the lines, we typically think of someone who is intuitive. That person might make a good manager or caregiver. In contrast, someone who can gyoukan wo yomu in Japanese is not special. Furthermore, to make someone read between the lines in English is not a positive thing - we should just say it plainly and fill in the gaps. For Japanese, though, having someone read between the lines (gyoukan wo yomaseru) is part of communication, just as reading between the lines is important and usual.

This is not to claim that there are no High Context Germans, Dutch, or Americans, and no Low Context Koreans, Indonesians, or Japanese - clearly, there are. In addition, even if we tend to be Low Context, we can probably think of situations or people with whom we are High Context (for instance, a childhood friend or a spouse). Nonetheless, the Context map explains some important gaps in communication, as well as resulting confusion (and sometimes frustration).

Recently, my colleague Robert Hilke and I had dinner with a Japanese client. He was talking about our seminar, and after a long pull on his beer, he said that our training was 値段が高い[研修] (nedan ga takai [kenshuu]). Frankly speaking, we were both taken aback. The price (nedan) of our training (kenshuu) is high (takai)?! Meanwhile, the fourth person at the table, another Japanese, sat there smiling and nodding his head. Robert and I glanced at each other and prepared ourselves to make a reasoned argument about cost performance and quality. Just in case, Robert asked, 高いですか (Takai desu ka: “Is it high?”). Our client paused, looked at the expressions on our faces, and then suddenly started laughing. “I’m praising your training. Nedan ga takai in this case means that your training is high quality. It’s excellent!” You can imagine the sighs of relief that echoed around the room from the American and Briton. When Robert and I talked about it later with Japanese colleagues, we found out that there are three ways to understand the expression: firstly, the cost performance is poor, secondly, the cost is higher than expected, and finally, the quality makes the product or service valuable and worthwhile.

Given the potential for misunderstanding, let’s consider in the next article why this Context difference comes about and what we can do about it as business people.

To reiterate, then, there is a gap between the reality and the appearance of power gaps in some cultures, while in others, what you see is what you get. Many Russian business people, for instance, will tell you that formality is important in their culture. Senior people are treated with apparent respect, and at the same time, there is also a High PDI (power distance) relationship. On the other hand, Swedes tend to be informal, even in business, and this matches the tendency to Low PDI in their culture. If you were to look at a stereotypical manager in either of these cultures, then, her behaviour and attitude would most likely match her actual PDI level.

However, let’s think about German culture for a moment. Many people have the image that Germans are ‘top-down’ (High PDI). However, Hofstede’s PDI data show that Germany is relatively Low PDI (at 35 on the scale, Germany is actually the same as the Czech Republic). We have noted in previous articles that German managers need to create consensus with different constituencies, too; senior managers cannot merely mandate what will happen without consulting union members and junior management, for instance. At the same time, German behaviour often looks High PDI because of their tendency towards formality (which, as we know, does not match the reality). A friend of mine, for instance, worked with two Germans at one of the major global oil companies. The two Germans were known to British colleagues by their given names, Ralph and Gunter. It was confusing for those same British colleagues, then, that the two Germans didn’t ever call each other “Ralph” or “Gunter.” Even more confusing (or for some people, amusing) was the fact that they didn’t know each other’s given names, a fact that became apparent at a Friday lunch party. The British wondered how the Germans could possibly not know such basic information.

While you might expect the majority German colleagues in a multinational to know both one another’s given and family names, this story is actually not so surprising. The same would also be true if you were to substitute Japanese for Germans. At INTEC seminars, we sometimes talk to people who know their bosses’ job titles but not their given names. Interestingly enough, “given name” is “the name below” in the Japanese language, which is evidence of the formality, or Appearance of Inequality, in Japanese culture.

As an example of the difference between Japan and North America in terms of the Appearance of (In)Equality, I remember being at Narita Airport recently on my way to consulting project in the U.S.A., and watching a young ANA (All Nippon Airlines) employee who was confused by the Appearance of Equality. She was guiding waiting passengers to open check-in counters, and saw a North American woman talking animatedly to a North American man. Since it is normal to send people flying in the same party to the same check-in counter, she politely waited for a pause in their conversation to ask them a question:

ANA check-in assistant: Are you travelling together?

Woman: No, just talking.

A look of confusion swept over the ANA woman’s face before she managed to replace it with a mask of professional politeness and send them to separate check-in counters.

This Appearance of Equality or Appearance of Inequality could be thought of as a performance. As we have seen, that performance sometimes matches the reality, and at other times, it actually exaggerates the reality in one way or another.

At one end of this new scale (‘map’), the Appearance of Equality end, we have Australia. Australians tend to stress their mutual equality and behave in a casual way (“G’day, Mate!”) even if they know there is a power gap between them. It is a kind of social lubricant to make people from that culture feel comfortable. At the other end of the scale, the Appearance of Inequality end, we find Korea, and in particular, Koreans in their thirties or older. As a tendency, Korean business people tend to stress the gaps between themselves. This, too, is a social lubricant. By knowing who is in a higher position, who is older, who joined the company first, who is the customer, who went to a more prestigious university, then Koreans know how to behave and what tone of language to use. As an illustration of this, think of how many ways there are to say “you” in different languages. English has one word, as there is no real need to distinguish between different levels of “you.” German has two, while Japanese and Korean have even more than that.

For business people, then, this cultural behaviour has an impact on the use of job titles, the names that colleagues call one another, the appropriateness of telling a joke at the start of a presentation (as an Australian might do, for instance), the seating order at a dinner or in a meeting (as you would expect in Korea), and the formality of clothing. Japanese expatriates or Japanese on business trips are sometimes accused of being arrogant or unfriendly when they visit local offices. I remember a French participant in one of our seminars telling us that when Japanese visit his company’s Paris office, they often go directly to find the person they have come to visit and fail to greet other people or smile. In fact, they avoid eye contact as they walk through the office. This drives the local staff crazy, apparently: “Why don’t they just say hello, smile, behave decently?” However, from a Japanese point of view, why interrupt people you don’t know and selfishly force them to pay attention to you?

Our advice is to use the Appearance of Equality/Appearance of Inequality map to read the situation and the people around you, and to then match their style. If you don’t, then you risk being thought of as childish or cold, selfish or arrogant. At the same time, it is important to explain the map to colleagues so that they can objectively understand the differences.

In our next article, we will look at how explicitly information should be explained. Are there cultural tendencies that impact upon how people do business, for instance?

Following on from the previous article, let’s look at the question of whether or not Japan is truly High PDI and the United States Low PDI. Appearances certainly support that idea. First, picture Japanese subordinates bowing in greeting to their manager and addressing him by his family name or title, and then contrast that image with a beaming, booming American supervisor who goes by his first name at work (“Hey, call me Bob”). However, now consider the following two questions:

1. Who has more latitude to fire workers: a Japanese or an American manager?
2. Which is stronger in Japan and the United States: the headquarters (honsha) or actual workplace (gemba)?

Before suggesting answers to these questions, we should consider the implications of the comparison. If managers in one country have more freedom to terminate employees, then there is more of a power gap between them and their subordinates. At the same time, a large gap in power between the HQ and workplace would suggest a High PDI situation.

First of all, in the United States, managers can fire someone if she violates a company rule that she knows about, if she cannot perform her job at an acceptable level, or if the company needs to reduce headcount for economic reasons. Terminations may be contested legally, of course, and companies need to demonstrate fairness (for more information, see http://www.googobits.com/articles/2259-how-to-legally-terminate-an-employee.html). However, American managers have the right to fire people, and they exercise it.

How about in Japan? In principle, there appear not to be major differences. There are five reasons in Japan: natural disasters which mean the company cannot continue operations, downsizing, a gross violation of an order, inappropriate behaviour, and poor attitude or performance (to read the details in Japanese, see http://www.kana-rou.go.jp/users/kijyun/shukaiko.htm. In practice, though, Japanese managers cheerfully admit that it is close to impossible to fire people in Japan, particularly if they are members of the company union. Cynics go so far as to suggest that subsidiaries (and desks by the window) serve as a kind of dumping ground for problem employees. At this point, you might argue that after Matsushita Electric (Panasonic) recorded a 427.78 billion yen net loss in fiscal 2001, the company took the step of shedding workers in Japan. In fact, an estimated 120,000 people left the company (Irene Kunii, BusinessWeek, 21 July, 2003). However, if you talk to people who survived those dark days, they will tell you that redundancies were voluntary and the packages generous. According to those same people, the salaries of those who remained were cut, too, so that the pain was shared.

Supporting this evidence of Japan being lower on the PDI scale than America is the relative power of the HQ and the workplace (for want of a better translation of gemba). In the United States, the headquarters tends to enjoy more prestige, power, and privilege. Factories, sales companies, and technical service centres are controlled on the basis of targets and statistics. On the other hand, experts on Japanese business make much of gembashugi, or gemba-ism, suggesting that the HQ exists to serve the gemba. Professor Robert Cole at UC Berkeley, for example, has called it “a major success factor for Japanese manufacturing” (while at the same time saying that perhaps as result, Japanese firms tend not to use IT strategically). Meanwhile, if you actually ask Japanese which is stronger, the corporate headquarters or the gemba, they usually hesitate. Those who actually name the HQ are willing to concede that the gap is not that great, and certainly not in line with the perceived gap in the USA.

Meanwhile, if you have read “Riding the Waves of Culture” by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner (McGraw-Hill), then you might remember data that do two things: support the idea that Japan is not particularly High PDI, and contradict the claim that Japan is lower than the USA on the scale. The authors outline the following situation: “A boss asks a subordinate to help him paint his house. The subordinate, who does not feel like doing it, discusses the situation with a colleague.” While only 32% of Chinese respondents said they would refuse, 91% of Swedes claimed they would do just that. The Japanese were somewhere in between at 71%, while 82% of Americans said they would refuse.

The Japanese number appears to be more evidence of a medium level PDI. This surprised Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, who went back to talk to some of their Japanese informants. What they then found is that in Japan, few houses are painted anyway, rendering the question itself strange. At INTEC, therefore, we sometimes ask Japanese business people not about painting, but about moving: “Assuming that your boss was about to move for personal, rather than company reasons, would you help?” Using a one-to-five Likert scale, we have found that only 44.9% (of 2,000 people surveyed in person during our seminars) have positive responses.

Returning to Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner’s question, don’t the data support the claim that Japan is higher on the PDI scale than the United States? We don’t believe so. The Monochronic/Polychronic scale that will be the topic of later articles shows that Japanese tend to blur the boundaries between their work and private lives more than Americans, and this accounts for the gap in the data from the two countries. Indeed, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner themselves used the house painting data to get at the difference between what they call “specific” and “diffuse” societies (with the USA and the Netherlands as examples of the former, and Mexico and Portugal as example of the latter). Indeed, they quote one typically “specific” Dutch respondent who said, “House painting is not in my collective labor agreement.” Japanese, then, are more likely than Americans to agree to help their boss outside the workplace in order to preserve and strengthen the relationship.

Finally, how about the United Kingdom and Russia? Both appear to outsiders to be High PDI, as people’s behaviour tends to be relatively formal. However, although Russia does not feature in Hofstede’s research, the U.K. is relatively low on Hofstede’s scale. In the case of Russia, anecdotal evidence shows that there is little discrepancy between the appearance and the reality: Russian relationships in companies tend to be High PDI. However, that is not the case in the United Kingdom, where as some people will tell you, the best way to ensure that you don’t get cooperation from Britons is to deal with them in a top-down manner. In other words, there is a gap between the reality and the appearance. As we will see in the next article, this is the case in both the United States and Japan, too, but in markedly different ways.

Many people working at Japanese companies believe that Japanese management is top-down. Whether we ask Indonesians employed by a Japanese textiles company or Germans working for a Japanese trading company, there appears to be consensus on this point. Furthermore, Japanese people make similar comments. However, if you are familiar with Geert Hofstede’s work on “Power Distance [Index],” then you will know that at least one researcher disagrees with this idea. After all, Hofstede’s data show Japan in the middle of the scale, at round the same level as Argentina and Poland (http://www.geert-hofstede.com/). Is this really the case? And what is “PDI” (“Power Distance Index”), anyway?

First of all, PDI. It is another continuum, with “Low PDI” at one end and “High PDI” at the other. Broadly speaking, Low PDI people expect there to be a small power gap between themselves and their bosses. A boss’s role is to consult and coordinate, after all, and to ensure that people’s energies are channelled so that everybody pulls in the same direction. Aligning personal and organisational goals is a challenge, and the way to do it is by including everyone. In German companies, for instance, the CEO is often involved in consultation with many stakeholders, including works councils (Betriebsrat) and executive boards. An article in BusinessWeek, for instance, noted that at Bertelsmann, which is one of Germany’s biggest and most prestigious companies, “[m]andates from the top never go down easily” (14 December, 2007). The German overall style is typically collegial and consensual, then (http://www.executiveplanet.com/).

In a High PDI culture, though, the gap between supervisors and subordinates is large. Managers are expected to tell their direct reports what to do, and team members are expected to follow orders. Managers have more experience, more skill, and usually bigger salaries - that’s why they are managers, after all. If people are High PDI, then they will see this style as being effective. Senior management aver that it is “our way or the highway,” and if they are competent managers, then that is all well and good. After all, who would not want to follow an outstanding manager such as GE’s Jack Welch (a man who vigorously defended the huge pay gap between senior management and rank-and-file)? Countries with High PDI tendencies include Malaysia, France, and China. A consultant working with an INTEC team commented last year that the corporate culture of a Chinese company typically reflects what the CEO thinks and demands - that is a reflection of China’s High PDI nature.

What are the implications of this for you as a business person? Well, for one thing, if you and your boss have different approaches, then there is likely to be friction. Imagine, for example, a High PDI manager and a Low PDI team member. The latter is likely to feel that his boss only tells him what to do without asking for his opinion or involving him in decisions. “I’m a smart person, so why doesn’t she just ask me what I think? I mean, I can make more of a contribution.” At the same time, the supervisor may wonder why her subordinate always has to question things: “Why doesn’t he just do what I ask? He’s not at all cooperative.”

How about if you have a Low PDI supervisor and a High PDI subordinate? In that case, the manager may wonder why her direct report is not cooperating with her. “I ask him his opinion, and he looks at me blankly. Does he dislike me that much?” Meanwhile, the subordinate wonders when his boss is going to start earning her salary and actually start making some decisions. “If she doesn’t tell me what to do, how are we going to get anything done? She’s a manager, but she certainly doesn’t behave like one. It seems like she doesn’t have any management skill.” Identifying gaps and either explaining them objectively or closing them consciously becomes important, then.

Now, please think about tendencies for Indian people in business. Do they tend to be Socratic or Confucian? If you have worked with Indians, then you will almost certainly have noticed that they discuss ideas and debate topics with gusto. At the same time, though, is your image of Indian culture Low PDI or High PDI? Chances are that you have the image that Indian organisations are top-down. In other words, however counter-intuitive it may sound, a Confucian system is not necessarily “top-down,” just as a Socratic system is not necessarily “flat” in nature. Consider the tendencies in France for further evidence of this. How about Japan and the United States, though? The former certainly appears to be High PDI, while the latter looks Low PDI. Whether or not that is actually the case will concern us in the next article.

Before that, though, and by way of practical advice, when giving instructions to High PDI people, be careful of accepting “yes” answers when you ask, “Do you understand?” - after all, if you ask a High PDI team member if he has understood what you want, his reflex may be to say “yes” (even if he hasn’t carefully thought it through). To avoid the frustration of not having your instructions followed as you would wish, then, what can you do?

Experienced managers tell us that they have found the best thing is to either ask that team member to repeat back the instructions in their own words, or to have the person follow those instructions under your supervision: “Just to confirm, please go over the instructions with me” or, “Please show me how you are going to go about this.” Be careful to do this when others are not listening in, though, particularly in cultures that emphasise face-saving, such as Indonesia, Thailand, and China. Instead, go somewhere quiet where the two of you can confirm your instructions. If your team member has truly understood, then thank him. If not, help him to understand by patiently explaining and showing him one more time. If others do happen to see him make a mistake, don’t draw attention to what was wrong (such as the order): “OK. Let’s do it again and focus on the order of the steps.”

One more thing: being High PDI doesn’t mean being rude. A High PDI manager should still be polite, and as we will see in a subsequent article, in many cultures, she needs to be in order to get the cooperation of team members. The difference between “Do this” and “Loxy, I need your help with this” can be huge. Before looking at expressions of power and whether or not power distance is obvious to casual observers, however, we need to consider the question raised above: where do Japan and the United States fit on this PDI scale? And how about the United Kingdom and Russia? Let’s talk about that next time.

As we asked last time, what can you do if you are the Chair of meeting in which there are both “rugby” and “golf” style people? If you do nothing, if you just trust to luck that things will turn out all right, you are likely to be disappointed. In many cases, you will find that if you do nothing, the “rugby” players will hijack the meeting, and there will be frustration on both sides. The “rugby” people will feel that the “golf” players should contribute more in meetings. If those “golf” people are sent from the head office to a local subsidiary, then the level of frustration is likely to be magnified: “Why did they bother coming here if they aren’t going to say anything? I mean, these guys are just taking up valuable headcount.” At the same time, the “golf” players will be frustrated: “Why don’t these people just shut up and listen?” At INTEC, we have seen this same frustration in consulting projects, training seminars, meetings, and even in business school classrooms.

When we ask participants in training sessions what they could do to deal with this kind of situation, some people suggest that the Chair should ask the “golf” players to contribute (“Patrick, what do you think about Susan’s idea?”). This is certainly what happens in a Japanese high school classroom: the teacher chooses one student to answer a question (“Tanaka-kun, what’s the answer to number two?”), and the other 39 students breathe a quiet sigh of relief. Rather than this solution, though, we prefer the idea of a “Prius” meeting (named, of course, for Toyota’s hybrid vehicle).

The key to a “Prius,” or hybrid meeting, is to use the agenda in order to make things clear. (We will later talk about the need for this kind of “Low Context” communication when dealing with diversity in business.) On a typical agenda, you would spell out the different items for discussion, as well as the time allotted for each one. We recommend that you add one more column: “style.” In other words, will each item be discussed in a “rugby” or “golf” fashion?

Imagine, for instance, the first item on an imaginary agenda: “1. 13:00-13:10 Purpose of Meeting and Self Introductions.” Would it make more sense to handle this using the “rugby” or “golf” style? Clearly, since interruptions would be strange (and disruptive) at this stage, a “golf” style would be more appropriate. For that reason, if someone interrupted, you would refer her to the “style” column and ask her to wait for her “golf” turn. The next topic (for instance, “2. 13:10-13:40 New Marketing Ideas”) should use “golf,” too, as this will help the “golf” players to relax and get in the swing of things. Once again, the Chair should not allow interruptions. After that, there might be a discussion of the new marketing ideas, and this would take advantage of the strengths of the “rugby” style (“3. 13:40-14:20 Discussion of new ideas”). At this stage, interruptions would be fine, as long as people remembered to separate people from their ideas and stick to the agenda (i.e., play according to “rugby” rules). The final item of the agenda, the summary and action plan, should be “golf,” because if the meeting closes with “rugby,” there is a danger that it will turn into something of a never-ending story.

This hybrid approach is effective, but it depends on the participants having objectivity about their own meeting style preferences, as well as those of others (regardless of their nationality). As we have seen before, of course, not all Chinese or Japanese or Argentines think or behave in the same way, so it is necessary to think carefully about the specific Chinese, Japanese, and Argentines with whom you have meetings. Better solutions for business processes and communication can be built on this base of objectivity.

As a final comment, there seems to be something of a push towards the Socratic end of the scale in Japan at the moment. For instance, you can find rules for meetings posted on the walls of conference rooms in Japanese companies that encourage employees to “Have a clear agenda,” “Start and finish on time,” and “Ensure that there is a clear purpose for the meeting and that you work hard to achieve it in the meeting itself.” However, for process-oriented organisations, including “monozukuri” companies famed for their consistently high quality, this change should be undertaken carefully. After all, at the base of “monozukuri” we can find “hyoujunka” and “kaizen” - quality is maintained through successful standardisation (“hyoujunka”), and then quality improvements are made through “kaizen.” In order to achieve “hyoujunka,” the Confucian style is surely effective (as many people can get the same information at the same time and in the same place). The energies of Socratic people should be directed towards “kaizen” once “hyoujunka” has been achieved. When another “kaizen” improvement has been disseminated and embedded (“yokoten”), then “hyoujunka” should happen anew.

The conclusion of this article, then, is that diversity will add value if it is skillfully managed, and that an objective comprehension of the “maps” (such as the Socratic/Confucian “map”) can help us to be successful in that management of diversity, since that understanding gives us greater power to move up and down each scale in an effective and appropriate manner.

Moving on, in our next outing we will look at power relations in companies, and show that however counter-intuitive it may sound, a Confucian system is not necessarily “top-down,” just as a Socratic system is not necessarily “flat” in nature.

What, then, am I claiming is the relevance of the Socratic and Confucian model for business people dealing with the globalisation of their supply chains and markets? What do I mean by “rugby” and “golf” in the context of business communication processes? Finally, if there are gaps, what can you do to bridge those gaps? That is what we will look at this time.

First of all, let’s consider the relevance of this map (“Socratic and Confucian Methods”) for business people. About 85% of our work in the Intercultural Communication Training team is with Japanese (for instance, managers who are about to be sent overseas to run local units, engineers going to pass on Job Instruction skills, Quality Assurance teams helping to set up new factories, or Japanese working in the International Department of their company). The remaining 15% of our time is spent training and consulting with non-Japanese, either overseas or in Japan. When we work with non-Japanese groups, we almost always ask them what kind of frustrations they have working with, and for, Japanese.

The initial answer to this question is typically guarded. We will be told that Japanese are basically fairly kind and considerate, although sometimes quiet and hard-to-read. We even hear comments such as, “One of the great things about Japanese is that when they go on a business trip, they always bring back a souvenir for the office. Funnily enough, many times it is macadamia nuts.” Leaving aside the apparent Japanese proclivity for macadamia nuts, we try to dig a little more deeply by picking up on the “quiet” and “hard-to-read” comments. What we are then often told can be summarized by the following four comments:

1. The Japanese don’t speak often enough in meetings, and I wonder if they even have any opinions of their own.
2. They don’t act decisively. I mean, in meetings they often refuse to tell us their opinions, let alone work with us to come up with a solution there and then.
3. When we ask questions or push for an answer, they often clam up. That can be pretty unnerving. It’s almost as if they are ignoring us or shutting down.
4. Honestly speaking, the Japanese sometimes mislead us.

What is behind these comments? Starting with the most shocking first (number 4), we don’t believe at INTEC that Japanese set out to mislead local colleagues. (This statement ignores the handful of people with bad intentions or a political agenda, of course.) Rather, we believe it comes from a deep cultural value and communication style.

Japanese are educated in a system and environment that teaches people to read between the lines when necessary. If we paint a broad-brushstroke picture, Japanese are expected from a young age to rely on contextual information and signals (such as body language, gestures, age, gender, social position, and silences) in order to fully understand messages. The common Japanese expression that translates such as “Hear one, know ten” (“Ichi wo kiite, juu wo shiru”) is evidence of this.

In contrast, children in countries such as Canada and the Netherlands are rewarded for saying explicitly what they want and think; they are expected to hone the skills necessary to do this without being rude. When they hear “one,” they know “one.” Their training had led them to feel that if someone wants them to understand “ten,” then he must say “ten.”

As a result of this difference, at the same time that Japanese business people may feel that they are communicating a message clearly, local staff may be confused, or worse, may think they understand the message when they actually don’t. Later, if they discover what their Japanese colleague or manager really meant, then they could feel as if they have been misled. “Why didn’t he just say so?” is the key question. “He led me up the garden path” is a possible interpretation. We will come back to this issue in future articles, as it is important to understand the gap between so-called Low Context and High Context communication. Based on that understanding, people can find ways of communicating more effectively.

Number 2 and number 3 above are also related to this idea of Low/High Context. Number 3, for example, shows that silence can be misconstrued. A Japanese person may be silent because she is thinking carefully about something. She may also be silent because she is unhappy but doesn’t want to be confrontational. Regardless, she would probably expect the other person to pick up on her unspoken signals. However, Low Context people are more comfortable being told explicitly, and for them, silence appears to be a breakdown in communication. After all, Low Context people understand “one” when they hear “one,” so when they hear nothing at all, they assume communication has failed. The same reasoning can help us to understand comment number 2 above ? Japanese may need more time to make a decision, but they may not say so explicitly. At the same time, they may also not feel comfortable being pushed to make a decision on the spot. And this point brings us to the idea of “golf” communication and “rugby” communication.

Imagine a golf foursome standing at the first tee. The first member of the foursome goes to the tee, looks down the fairway, plucks and then drops a blade of grass to check the wind direction and speed, loosens up her shoulders by taking a few practice swings, and then addresses the ball. The other three members fall quiet and wait. After she has hit the ball, all four people watch its course through the air, and then if it hits the fairway, they clap. The first person then gets off the tee, and the second person takes her place to go through the same process. However, just as one person was getting ready to hit her ball, can you imagine the reaction if another member hissed, “Miss it!” or sneezed loudly? How about if a member of the foursome suddenly pushed the person on the tee out of the way and then hit her ball? Clearly, neither action would be acceptable, because both break a key golf rule based on the underlying value of respect. Just as in a golf game you must respect each person’s turn, in a “golf” meeting, one person speaks, there is a pause, then another person speaks, and there is another pause… The words “saegiru” and “warikomu” in Japanese both carry very negative meanings in Japanese, but if you check a dictionary, both translate as “interrupt.” In English, interruptions are not necessarily rude. In fact, they can be useful and necessary if they move the discussion forward. The reason is that Socratic people don’t play “golf” in meetings. They play “rugby.” Clearly, “golf” and “rugby” help us to understand the first comment made by non-Japanese, then: “The Japanese don’t speak often enough in meetings, and I wonder if they even have any opinions of their own.”

What can you do if you are the Chair of meeting and need to balance two constituencies, one of which is made of “rugby” people and the other of which consists of “golf” members? Let’s consider that next time, because there is something you can do to get the most from both your “rugby” and “golf” players. That will be very important if you work in a diverse environment.

As we intimated last time, culture has an important impact on the way in which meetings and presentations are conducted. Imagine, for example, a meeting room in which ten North American business people are discussing next year’s budget. Now imagine that next door, there is another meeting room in which ten Japanese business people are talking about the same thing. If we were to use an instrument to objectively measure the decibel output, which meeting do you imagine would excite the needle of our meter more?

And now for a second question. Let’s take five people at random from our room of Japanese people and put them in together with five of our North Americans. Who would be likely to dominate the conversation? On average, people from which of the two countries would speak more often and more loudly?

The chances are good that your answers were as follows:

1. As a tendency, the North Americans would speak more loudly (and more often) than the Japanese.
2. The Americans would be likely to seize the (oral) initiative.

Why would most people answer in this way, and why would they typically be right to do so? Since we are dealing with aggregates (groups of people) and not individuals, the answer must be related to shared norms, i.e., to culture. (For those of you grabbing for English as the explanation, substitute “French” for “North American” above – clearly, it is not as simple as native speaker advantage.) Therefore, we need cultural “maps” to help us to understand what is happening at a deeper level. One of those “maps” is what we call “Socratic and Confucian Systems” at INTEC. (Later, we will call the former “Rugby” and the latter “Golf,” but for now, let’s stick with apparently more erudite labels.)

We’ll begin with this map because it explains a fundamental difference in the approach to education. We all spend a significant proportion of our formative minutes, hours, and days in school, and so we bear the imprint of education in telling ways.

Japanese schools tend to follow the Confucian model of education. Confucius himself lived approximately 2,600 years ago in China, and the Chinese State adopted and adapted his teachings for its own purposes from the beginning of the Han Dynasty in 202 B.C. The philosophy that bears Confucius’s name has at its heart the idea of a hierarchy and social order built on respect. There are five “cardinal relationships” defined under Confucianism: ruler and ruled, parent and child, husband and wife, older brother and younger brother, and finally friend and friend. Juniors owe respect and obedience to their seniors, while seniors must act with benevolence towards their juniors. We can now add one more relationship to this list: that between teacher and pupil. Teachers in cultures such as Japan, Thailand, and China are accorded respect because they are teachers. They may lose that respect if they are incompetent, but at least initially, they garner respect because of their position.

In Japan, of course, a teacher is called “sensei,” a term which is also used for professional people with high social positions such as medical doctors, lawyers, politicians, famous writers, and qualified accountants. In Thailand, January 16 every year is “Teachers’ Day.” In China, the term “laoshi” (“teacher”) carries strong overtones of respect. Compare this with many Western countries in which people say, “Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach” (for your own amusement, try pumping this phrase into Google). Indeed, the same native-speaker English teachers who hold their heads up high in Japan are likely to be more sheepish and evasive about their work in their own countries (“I’m teaching English, but just to get enough money to travel,” for instance).

What, then, is the role of the teacher in the Confucian system? Simply put, her job is to pass information to the students in one direction. The role of students is to listen carefully, take sufficient notes, and subsequently regurgitate the information during test time. The students who do this best are rewarded. The system is a highly efficient way of transferring the same knowledge at the same time to many people. However, it is markedly different from the Socratic system.

Socrates was born (in Greece) nine years after Confucius died (in China). The system that bears his name is based on the idea of challenge. Teachers are charged with giving their students information and then stimulating them to challenge that information. Students are also expected to bring in their own information to support other ideas. By “playing devil’s advocate,” each participant in the class can help to move the information around and verify opinions. Just sitting quietly and listening is not enough; everyone must contribute by speaking.

The expression “to play devil’s advocate” is specific to Socratic cultures. Originally, an official of the Roman Catholic Church was tasked with challenging the candidacy of people for canonisation (i.e., being elevated to the status of a saint) by asking many difficult questions and suggesting the opposite: this person should not be made a saint. What it means today is that opinions and ideas are challenged even if those opinions are actually shared. For instance, Susan may believe that a deep understanding of the maps of culture will help business people to communicate and manage more effectively. Jon may agree with her. However, if Jon plays devil’s advocate, he will intentionally take the opposite opinion and ask many difficult questions (such as, “Wait a minute, Susan. Let me play devil’s advocate to that. Aren’t people everywhere all the same?” or “Surely, there is one best way to manage people in business?” or “Doesn’t cultural relativism open the door to indecisiveness and inconsistency?”). Susan must now defend her ideas with data and other evidence. In this way, both people can deepen their understanding of the issue. The assumption is clearly that difference is positive (as long as people don’t take things personally and become emotional or irrational).

As we have seen, the Confucian method is an efficient way of transferring knowledge. The Socratic method, too, has a clear benefit: it allows people to come to a fuller understanding of a topic. The two methods have drawbacks as well, such as a lack of variety of opinions for one and the amount of time potentially taken for the other. Both methods sometimes break down in the classroom, too. If students don’t listen, or if the teacher has nothing to contribute, then neither can work well. That is common to both. At the same time, there is a key difference between the two methods.

First of all, in the Confucian method, direct challenges cause critical problems. In Japanese, for example, the expression “Sensei no iken ni hanron suru” (“Challenge the teacher’s idea”) has a negative nuance. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that it is selfish for a student to take up the time of her classmates by asking a question for her own purposes in class. The second is that a good question may cause the sensei to lose face, because the sensei and his opinion are strongly connected. This doesn’t mean that Japanese students never challenge their teachers, however. After school, a surprising (for a Briton, at least) number of people visit the teachers’ room to ask questions one-on-one. Teachers often stay at school into the evening dealing with those questions (as well as preparing for the next day’s download of information).

By contrast, the biggest problem for the Socratic method is a lack of response (in the form of questions and counter-arguments) from the students, who are supposed to be active participants. Attendance is not enough; participation is required. This is made possible because a person and his idea should be kept separate. In other words, Susan’s opinion and Susan herself are two different entities. By attacking Susan’s idea, we don’t attack Susan. Meanwhile, if Susan finds our counter-argument persuasive, she is free to abandon her idea and agree with us (something which often puzzles Japanese business people, who grew up believing that a person’s ideas are an integral part of her).

Which is all well and good for students, but what is the relevance for business people dealing with the globalisation of their supply chains and markets? Well, the answer to that, the reasons for thinking of the Socratic method as “rugby” and the Confucian system as “golf,” and specific advice about what to do to bridge any gaps, must wait until next time.

Objectivity, then, is the key to successful intercultural communication. It is also vital in business management. We need to be objective about ourselves, about others, and about our culture. Before we go any further, though, let’s think about what we mean when we use the word “culture.”

When you think of “culture,” what do you picture? For most people, factors such as clothing, literature, cuisine, technology, sport, art, transportation, and architecture spring to mind. Weather, climate, geography, topography, flora, and fauna usually follow. Less often, people suggest values, ways of thinking, and norms.

In our seminars at INTEC, we ask participants to give a title to each of these lists. The first (clothing, etc.) consists of artificial factors, while the second (geography, etc.) is made up of natural factors. These come to mind quickly because we can see them and measure or describe them fairly easily. However, the final list contains factors that we cannot see and which are hard to describe. They are internal, intangible, and invisible. At INTEC, we think of them as being hidden factors.

Culture is often compared to an iceberg. If we think of the Titanic and look again at our three lists, while the second list of natural factors can be mapped on to the sea, moon, and clouds, the first list of artificial factors is the part of the iceberg that we can see from the ship: it is the part above the surface. While it looms high above us, not only can we see the top part of the iceberg, but we can also navigate our way around it without too much trouble. We are unlikely to hit that part. In the same way, if we go to China, for example, we won’t suffer too much just because we don’t like Chinese food or clothing (indeed, if we are in Shanghai, we can easily visit a Japanese restaurant or shop at Uniqlo). Similarly, if we don’t enjoy the weather in Shanghai, we can stay indoors as much as possible, and travel by car otherwise.

The factors that are the most dangerous, then, are those represented by the bottom part of the iceberg, which is below the surface. That part represents the hidden factors (values, etc.). When we live and work overseas, the aspects of culture that cause us the greatest trouble are those that we cannot usually see. We bump up against different working styles, different values, and different ways of thinking. When people are more interested in going home on time than on finishing a task today, when people look at problem solving as a one-off fire-fighting exercise, rather than as an opportunity to make a long-lasting incremental improvement to some process, or when people’s first instinct is to challenge ideas immediately without first listening to a complete explanation, then we may feel frustration.

That leads us to a crucial and practical question: what can we do? We are often told that when in Rome, we should do mimic the Romans. Therefore, if we go to Thailand, we should learn, respect, and follow Thai customs and values. However, it is not really that simple for business people. At INTEC, we believe that what we should really do is to take a deep breath, resist the temptation to react immediately, and then do our best to look at the situation calmly. Based on an objective understanding of ourselves and ‘read’ of other people, we can make an informed decision. Sometimes, it will make sense to adapt to others. Sometimes, it will be better to persuade those people to adapt to us (for instance, to learn our company’s processes and values-in-action). As an example, local members of staff working in Japanese subsidiaries have made a conscious decision to join a Japanese-owned company, which means that they must be willing to adapt to some extent. As long as there is objective dialogue with shared vocabulary, then this can be a valuable process for both sides. Part of our contribution at INTEC is to provide our clients with that vocabulary and to encourage their objective self-analysis.

In the next article, we will look at the impact of culture on meetings, discussions, and presentations. For now, though, let’s remember that when doing business in Rome, we have a duty to both learn from the Romans and to share our culture with them.

Last month, we looked at the issue of “diversity” and considered the importance of having mental models, or ‘maps,’ to help with identifying, bridging, and integrating differences. This month, let’s think a little more about what we mean by “objectivity,” since that idea is at the root of everything we do here at INTEC.

In order for people to flourish in a diverse environment, they need to be able to understand that environment and to situate themselves within it. For example, if a Japanese engineer goes to work in Brussels with European colleagues, he must be able to understand the working style and attitudes of the people around him (as well as the historical and regulatory environment). At the same time, he must also be able to relate himself to his surroundings. If his new colleagues tend to be relaxed and informal in the office, for instance, he should understand that this may not be rude by their standards, and he should also examine what is ‘normal’ for him. Unfortunately, at INTEC we have heard stories of Japanese expatriates who are adjudged by their overseas colleagues to be aloof, unfriendly, or snobbish simply because they don’t usually make eye contact, smile, and greet people by name in the office. However, the Japanese in question almost certainly had no idea of the feelings they were engendering, and the possibility that they intended to come across as unfriendly or aloof is very small, of course.

What could these Japanese expatriates have done? If they had undergone appropriate training, then they would have been aware of the Illusion of (In)Equality that operates in different cultures. In Japan, for example, people usually conform to the Illusion of Inequality, which means that they tend to behave in a formal manner, perhaps by paying clear attention to job titles and age differences. Dutch people, on the other hand, tend towards the Illusion of Equality end of the scale, which means that they often appear not to care about relative rank or differences in age. In both cases, people are aware of rank and age; however, the Japanese often exaggerate the gaps, while Dutch often appear to ignore them. Most people who have worked with Korean companies will recognise the Illusion of Inequality end of the scale, while those familiar with Australians will certainly be aware of the Illusion of Equality.

A Japanese expatriate who had taken training, then, would have been prepared for the difference, and would have been able to choose objectively whether or not to adjust (perhaps by looking people in the eye, smiling, shaking hands, and learning people’s names). On the other hand, someone who had not taken training, but who had objectivity, would have paid attention to the behaviour of the people in the office and decided whether or not to mirror (i.e., mimic) it. She would then have been able to construct her own ‘map’ later on, either through reflection or with the help of someone who knew the (corporate or national) culture.

It is easy to advocate the use of objectivity, of course, but difficult to achieve it in practice. To do so requires controlling our reactions by gaining some kind of mental ‘distance.’ One way to see this in action is to think about what happens when we read a book, watch a play, or go to a movie. We tend to get emotionally involved in the narrative and to reflect the feelings of the heroes. We care what happens and lose our objectivity. When we walk out of the cinema, for example, we may even mimic what we have just seen (for instance, sparring with a friend after a “Rocky” movie, or trying on a charming smile after a Brad Pitt film). German playwright Bertolt Brecht is famous for trying to break this subjective link between the audience and the action through use of the Verfremdungstechnik, which is sometimes translated as “alienation,” but which is closer in meaning to a “technique of intentionally making something [appear] strange.” During Brecht’s plays, for instance, a character might stop and directly address the members of the audience, thereby shocking them into a position of greater objectivity. Japanese writer, Abe Kobo (安部 公房), and Japanese film director, Ooshima Nagisa (大島 渚) employ similar bizarre or surreal techniques in their attempt to force the audience to gain some objectivity through mental ‘distance.’ When we are working with people from other cultures, we need to be able to do the same thing and to follow John van Druten (Anglo-American playwright and author of “I Am a Camera”) by switching on our dispassionate monitor.

Finally, we need to be clear that we should use our ‘maps’ of culture in an objective and conscious manner. Stereotypes are often condemned as being prejudicial and dangerous, and anyone with that point of view may have found the claims made above about certain nationalities distasteful. He would argue, for example, that not every Japanese or Korean or Australian behaves according to a national stereotype. He would be right to do so, since we can see clear individual differences. However, he would also be slightly naïve or disingenuous. There are certainly patterns and tendencies in human behaviour and we can identify these within groups. Australians do tend to be more casual in the way that they sit in meetings or greet people than Koreans. Not every Australian fits the pattern, of course, which means that we have an obligation to ‘read’ the person in front of us, rather than blindly using a stereotype. Nonetheless, the stereotype is a starting point, a ‘first best guess,’ and it is useful if we use it consciously, if we avoid judging behaviour immediately, and if we update our stereotypes.

One of INTEC’s Japanese consultants, an expert on China, often makes the point that it is not helpful to generalise about Chinese culture and to make sweeping comments about attitudes to both business and work at a national Chinese level. At the same time, though, he says that it is useful to analyse at a generational (Long March generation, Cultural Revolution generation, and One-Child Policy generation, for example) or regional (e.g., Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou) level. We can identify patterns that will help us to do our jobs better, therefore, as long as we use our stereotypes objectively.

All of which begs the question of the meaning and role of “culture.” That, then, will be the topic of the next article.